


2 Minutes 11 Seconds

by TheMelancholyVegetable



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Episode: s03e08 Motel Review, Episode: s05e13 The Hike, First Meetings, Introspection, M/M, Memory, Time - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29141313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMelancholyVegetable/pseuds/TheMelancholyVegetable
Summary: Patrick thinks back, as he packs for the proposal hike, about the first time he met David.-OR-I timed their first interaction, from when Patrick comes around the corner after Ray calls his name, to when David steps around the corner and goes off-screen as he leaves. Their whole first meeting takes exactly 2 minutes and 11 seconds. This fic should take you approximately that long to read.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 14
Kudos: 113





	2 Minutes 11 Seconds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seadeepy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seadeepy/gifts).



> I've gifted this to seadeepy because her talking about her love of Patrick-perspective first meeting fics gave me the idea for this. <3

You never know, when you meet the love of your life, that that’s who they are, or will be. In that first meeting, they’re just another person. Maybe you bump into them on the street and stop to help them pick up their package. Maybe they see you reading their favorite book on the bus and can’t resist commenting on it. Or maybe they walk into your place of work one morning, one of your first clients at a new job in a new town.

Looking back now, Patrick marvels at the fact that he’d happened to look at the clock just as Ray called his name. Thanks to that coincidence, he can say definitively that David Rose walked into his life at precisely 10:17am on Friday, April 15th of 2016. He also knows that he looked at the clock when David left, too, and noted that only about two minutes had passed. Why did he do that? Why look at the clock? Did some part of him know, even then?

No, Patrick is certain he didn’t know in those two minutes, or even that day, that he’d met the love of his life. Hell, that day he still hadn’t quite admitted to himself that he was gay. Not in so many words, anyway. No, another week passed before he hit that milestone, on the day he delivered David’s business license. It was that interaction, not the first one, or even the second one, that gave him the push he needed. A mere six hours after David put him in his place with a confident speech about his business plan, Patrick stood in front of the bathroom mirror at Ray’s and told his reflection, “I’m gay.”

Now, two wonderful years later, Patrick opens the jewelry box one last time. Next time he opens it, he’ll be down on one knee. The gold rings, glittering against their black velvet cushion, take him back to that first meeting.

Memory is a funny thing. Patrick doesn’t recall every word of their conversation that morning. He’s never been able to do that, to record a moment perfectly like people in books always seem to do. What he does remember is David’s hands, graceful and expressive. The light glinting off his silver rings. The musical quality of his voice. His own over-confident teasing. A joke about baseball juxtaposed with a sports-themed engagement photo shoot.

Patrick smiles to himself at the coincidence. He'd forgotten that Ray was shooting engagement photos that morning. He and David will have to ask Ray to do their engagement photos. Ray will be thrilled. Assuming David says yes. Patrick is pretty sure he’ll say yes.

He closes the velvet box and secures it in the side pocket of the backpack. Everything is ready now. In a few minutes he’ll leave to pick David up at the motel. By this evening he’ll have a fiancé.

Can two minutes change your life? Patrick thinks so. It hadn’t been love at first sight. But those two minutes led to a million more minutes that he’d gotten to spend with David. A million minutes of laughter and tears and beauty and growth. A million moments of falling deeper and deeper in love.

As Patrick hefts both backpacks onto his shoulders and closes the apartment door behind him, he grins. If everything goes according to plan, he has a whole lifetime of minutes ahead of him, with David by his side. He can’t wait.


End file.
